Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

The 2017 Verbier Art Summit took place from 19 to 21 January 2017 and was organised in partnership with the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The theme for the Summit was chosen by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam: Size Matters! (De)Growth of the 21st Century Art Museum. The director of the Stedelijk Museum, Beatrix Ruf, and her curatorial team invited the keynote speakers.

BEATRIX RUF

Copyright: Robin de Puy

Beatrix Ruf is the former Director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. After completing her studies, she was Curator at Kunstmuseum Thurgau, Warth from 1994-1998 and Director of Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus from 1998-2001.

In 2001, Ruf was appointed Director of Kunsthalle Zürich, overseeing a substantial expansion project launched in 2003 and concluded in 2012. In 2006, she curated the third edition of the Tate Triennial in London and was Co-Curator of the Yokohama Triennial in 2008. She has been a member of the think tank core group of the LUMA foundation since 2010. In 2013 Ruf co-founded POOL, a postgraduate curatorial program in Zürich.

Ruf is a member of several Advisory and Programme Committees amongst others: Istanbul Modern, the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Garage Moskow, MAXXI, Rome, the Samdani Foundation, Bangladesh and serves frequently as a jury member in award committees, among them the Guggenheim Museum’s Hugo Boss Prize, and the Absolut Award, Han Nefkens/MACBA Award, Prix de Rome, Erasmus Prize and currently the Turner Prize.

At the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Beatrix Ruf has initiated exhibitions with, among others, Tino Sehgal, Ed Atkins, Liam Gillick, Isa Genzken, Avery Singer, Jordan Wolfson and Seth Price. She has also initiated an extensive and ambitious new collection display, which will open to the public in December 2017.

MARGRIET SCHAVEMAKER

Margriet Schavemaker (the Netherlands) studied Art History and Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and defended her Ph.D thesis ‘Lonely Images: Language in the Visual Arts of the 1960s’ at this university in 2007.

After a career as lecturer and assistant professor at the Art History and Media Studies departments at the University of Amsterdam, she currently holds the position of Manager Education, Interpretation & Publication at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Margriet has written extensively on contemporary art and theory, (co)edited several edited volumes (for example "Now is the Time: Art and Theory in the 21st Century" (2009) and "Vincent Everywhere: Van Gogh’s (Inter)national Identities" (2010)) and is an acclaimed curator of discursive events and public programs.

Margriet works as advisor for the Creative Industries Fund and is member of the jury for the Witteveen+ Bos award for Art and Technology. In 2013 she was research fellow at the Netherlandish Institute for advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Wassenaar.

BART VAN DER HEIDE

Photo: via Curated by Vienna.

Bart van der Heide (the Netherlands,1974) served as curator at Cubitt Gallery in London and at Witte de With in Rotterdam. He then became the director of the prestigious Kunstverein München in 2010, which underwent an ambitious growth under his directorate of 5 years. From February 2015, he has joined the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam as Chief Curator.

Together with the directors he is responsible for developing and implementing the museum’s policy on exhibitions and collection presentations, the Public Program, and the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA). Bart’s duties also include overseeing scholarly research and becoming a member of the museum’s Management Team.